President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the ‘Proclamation of Emergency‘ on the night of June 25, 1975, but it was in the morning of June 26 that the nation got to know via an unscheduled broadcast on All India Radio (also sarcastically referred to All Indira Radio) at 8 AM.

Listen to Indira Gandhi’s Emergency announcement aired on AIR at 8 AM, June 26, 1975:

“भाइयों और बहनों, राष्ट्रपतिजी ने आपातकाल की घोषणा की है । इससे आतंकित होने का कोई कारण नहीं है । (Brothers and sisters, the President has declared a state of Emergency. There is no reason to be terrorised by this,)” these ominous words resonated the airwaves on that fateful Thursday morning.

I have extracted this bit of Indira Gandhi’s radio address from a Doordarshan documentary on Jayprakash Narayan, another important person related to India’s Emergency, therefore the dramatic background music.

(This post is a part of a series on the 40th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency in India)